Coaches Poll top 25: Alabama is preseason No. 1, Ohio State over Florida State

The first preseason poll of the 2017 college football season has been released

The 2017 preseason Coaches Poll was released Thursday afternoon. That's right, for the first time in the 2017 season, we have teams ranked in list form with numbers next to their names. This means that actual football will be here soon, but even though we still have a few weeks to wait, at least we have rankings.

Sweet, soothing rankings.

There's nothing all that unexpected from the first Coaches Poll of the year as Alabama begins the season at No. 1. As for defending champion Clemson, it opens at No. 5 despite the fact it received more first-place votes than any other team besides Alabama. Ohio State is in at No. 2 over Florida State (No. 3) with USC (No. 4) helping round out the top five.

Also of note, the Big Ten has four teams in the top 10, while the ACC and Pac-12 both have two, and the SEC only has one. Of course, the SEC can take some solace in having more teams in the top 25 (six) than any other conference. The ACC and Big 12 rank second with five each, followed by the Big Ten and Pac-12 (four each) and AAC (one).

Tom Fornelli has been a college football writer at CBS Sports since 2010. During his time at CBS, Tom has proven time and again that he hates your favorite team and thinks your rival is a paragon of football...
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